A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF
THE DROUGHT MITIGATION PRACTICES OF AGRICULTURE SECTOR
IN JAPAN AND LOOKING FOR POSSIBILITIESTO APPLY BEST PRACTICES TO SRI LANKARESEARCH REPORT PRESENTED BY

W.M.S.B.WANNINAYAKE
Assistant Director (For Kurunegala District)
Disaster Management Centre, Ministry of Disaster Management, Sri Lanka

To the Asian Disaster Reduction Centre
Kobe, Japan

in partial fulfillment of the requirement
for the Visiting Researcher Program (2011 A)

29 August 2011

Disclaimer
This report was compiled by an ADRC visiting researcher (VR) from ADRC
member countries.
The views expressed in the report do not necessarily reflect the views of
the ADRC. The boundaries and names shown and the designations usedon the maps in the report also do not imply official endorsement or
acceptance by the ADRC.

Acknowledgement
My deepest gratitude is expressed to Mr. Shigeru ITOH, the Chairman of the Asian
Disaster Reduction Center, Mr. Atsushi KORESAWA, the Executive Director, and his
staff, Asian Disaster Reduction Center, Kobe, Japan for giving me the opportunity towork as a Visiting Researcher at ADRC.
Profound gratitude and appreciations also expressed to the Hon. Mahinda Amaraweera,
the Minister for Disaster Management in Sri Lanka, Mrs. S.M.Mohamed, the Secretary
to the Ministry of Disaster Management, Major Gen. Gamini Hettiarachchi (Retd), theDirector General to the Disaster Management Centre of Sri Lanka and Mr.
U.W.L.Chandradasa, Director to the Disaster Management Centre of Sri Lanka forgiving me this opportunity to attend to the Visiting Researcher Programme of ADRC,
Kobe, Japan.
My very sincere thanks are also expressed to Ms. Miki KODAMA, the SeniorResearcher,

ADRC,

Kobe,

Japan

for

her

valuable

guidance,suggestions,encouragement and support throughout the period of my study.
My special thanks go to Mr. Tetsuo IBARAKI, the Senior Researcher, ADRC, Kobe,
Japan for giving me guidance and support as my Mentor, throughout the study.
A special word of thanks goes to Mr. Takahiro ONO, the Senior Researcher, Miss Yumi
SHIOMI, Mr. Makoto IKEDA, the Researchers, for their support to complete my study.
I must also mention here thanks to the other Researches, all the staff members of the
Administration Section and Mr. Kawahara, the Language Teacher and all the others
whose names are not mentioned but helped me to fulfill my target, for their valuable andhelpful support for me to complete my study.
Finally I express my sincere thanks to my dear colleagues of Visiting Researchers, Mr.
Emin NAZAROV from Azerbaijan, Mrs. Anna-lisa ORALLO from the Philippines andMiss Surina Binti OTHMAN from Malaysia, for their valuable support for me to complete
the study.

I

Table of Contents
Acknowledgement
Table of Contentsiii

Chapter – 01 Introduction
1.1 Background of the Research
1.2 Objective of the Research
1.3 Significance of the Research

122Chapter 02 – Methodology
2.1 Data Collection
2.2 Data Analysis
2.3 Study Area
2.4 Limitation of the Study

3
3
3
3

Chapter 03 – Droughts in Japan
3.1 Fluctuation of Precipitation in Japan due to Climate Change
3.2 Declines in Water Supply Stability
3.3 Examples of Decline in Water Supply Stability
3.4 Occurrence of Water Shortage
3.5 Water Resource Management and Dams in Japan
3.6 Response to Water Shortage on Agriculture
3.7 Drought Conciliation Council for Water Use Coordination

4
4
4
5-8
8-11
11-12
12-18

Chapter 04 – Droughts in Sri Lanka
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Impacts on Paddy and Other Crops by Droughts
4.3 Drought Mitigation Measures in Sri Lanka

19-20
20
20-21

Chapter 05 – Conclusion and Recommendations
5.1 Conclusion
5.2 Recommendations

22
22-23

II

A preliminary study of the drought mitigation practices of agriculture sector inJapan and looking for possibilities to apply best practices to Sri Lanka.

CHAPTER 01 – INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the ResearchDrought can be simply defined as a situation where human demand for water exceeds
the available supply. Drought implies a lack of moisture for an extended period of time
which in turns causes a deficit of moisture in the soil. Many problems can arise due todroughts, including crop damage and water supply shortage.
How severe a drought is depends mostly on the degree of the deficiency, the time
period, and the size of the area affected. The timing is also a significant factor with theduration of droughts. Droughts result from a combination of meteorological, physicaland human factors. Their primary cause is a deficiency in rainfall and the timing,
distribution and intensity of this deficiency in relation to existing storage, demand andwater use. Temperature and evapotranspiration may act in combination with insufficient
rainfall to magnify the severity and duration of droughts. Moreover, due to changes inland use, water demand and climate thedroughts in future may become more
frequent and more severe.
There are four major classifications ofdroughts.
1. Meteorologicalexpressions

drought:ofUsually

precipitation’s

departure from normal over someperiod of time. Reflects one of the
primary causes of a drought.
2. Hydrologicaldrought:

Usually

expressions of deficiencies in surface
andsubsurface

Reflects

effectswater
andFigure 01: Impact by disasters on crops andpaddy from 1974 to 2007 in Sri Lanka

supplies.

impactsofdroughts.

1

3. Agricultural drought: Usually expressed in terms of needed soil moisture of aparticular crop at a particular time.
4. Socio-economic drought: Definitions associating droughts with supply of anddemand for an economic good.
Over the past few decades, drought losses worldwide have grown exponentially.
According to the previous experiences of natural disasters, droughts have made thebiggest damage to the agriculture of Sri Lanka than any other disaster such as floods,
landslides or tsunami. As the figure 1 shows the impact on crops and paddy from 1974
to 2007, it is clear that droughts account for the largest proportion of crop losses.
1.2 Objective of the Research
To study the Japanese drought mitigation practices and by means, to identify the bestpractices which can be applied in Sri Lanka.
1.3 Significance of the Research
As a country mainly based on agriculture the Sri Lanka should take the possible
maximum production in agriculture and should try to minimize the losses by droughts tokeep the development targets, especially in economy. Therefore it needs to findsolutions how to mitigate these droughts’ effects in agriculture of the country. In thesense this research is done to study the Japanese lessons and strategies for drought
mitigation.

2

CHAPTER 02 – METHODOLOGY
2.1 Data Collection
Data collection was mainly done from websites which have been mentioned inreferences. Some information was gained by field visits and lectures at some sites
which drought mitigation practices are going on.
2.2 Data Analysis
Analyzed data in previous studies were mostly used for the research. Descriptive
method has to be applied, rather than any statistical or mathematical analyzing tools
due to very concentrated period of time to complete the research.
2.3 Study Area
Agricultural areas in Japan and Sri Lanka where droughts are occurred in time to time
were considered as the study area.
2.4 Limitation of the Study
I had to complete the research within a limited period of time and therefore only very few
research techniques were able to apply to the study. The Study would be introduced asa preliminary study.

3

CHAPTER 03 – DROUGHTS IN JAPAN3.1 Fluctuation of Precipitation in Japan due to Climate Change
As the long-term trend of temperature change in Japan, the average annual surface airtemperature has increased by approximately 1oC over the past 100 years. Concerning
precipitation, years of low rainfall have become frequent since around 1970, and theamount of precipitation was much below average in 1973, 1978, 1984, 1994, and 1996,
when water shortages caused damage. Recently an increasing trend of fluctuation
between extremely low rainfall and extremely high rainfall has been observed. In
addition to the above-mentioned decrease in precipitation and frequent occurrence of
extremely low rainfall years, due to climate changes accompanying global warming,
trends of decreasing snowfall and increasingly earlier thaw have been recognized.
3.2 Declines in Water Supply Stability
When constructing dams in Japan, they are designed so as to secure the necessary
water supply even in a year of relatively low rainfall (base year for water supply). Whenannual precipitation is much lower than in the base year, the river flow also decreases
more than in the base year. On the other hand, since the storage capacity of waterremains fixed, it would be impossible to secure stable intake of water throughout theyear, even with replenishment from dams. For 60 % of the dams now in operation, thebase year is selected from between 1956 and 1975. Assuming that 1960 is the baseyear for water supply, in 9 out of about 40 subsequent years, annual precipitation was
lower than that in the base year. It means that water short ages occurred frequently. It isthus considered to be a problem that stable water supply has been impaired in many
places in recent years.
3.3 Examples of Decline in Water Supply Stability
Water resources development facilities in the Kiso River System include Tokuyama
Dam (under construction), Nagara River Estuary Barrage, Miso River Dam, Aki River
Dam, Iwaya Dam and Makio Dam. At present, when all of these facilities are in
operation, 88 m3 of water per second is planned to be supplied. However, thecalculation using flow rate in the year of the second lowest rainfall during the 20-year
period from 1979 to 1998 showed that only about 59% of the planned amount4

(equivalent to 1/10 water shortage) can be stably supplied. Further, in the calculation
using the flow amount in 1994 when serious water shortage occurred, the water amountsuppliable reduces to about 30% of the planned amount
3.4 Occurrence of Water Shortage
Previously, Japan repeatedly experienced major water shortages; for example, 1939 in
Lake Biwa, 1964 in the year of Tokyo Olympics, 1967 in Nagasaki, 1973 in Takamatsu,
1978 in Fukuoka, and so on. Though occurrence of water shortages has become rare in
recent years the shortage in 1994 covered almost all Japan, when approximately 16
million people were affected at least once by suspended or reduced water supply, andagriculture suffered production losses of 140 billion yen.
The Figure 02 shows the previous occurrence of water shortages in Japan. According to
the Figure 02, water shortages have been reported in ten Prefectures of five regions
from 1991 to 2010. The details of the affected areas are as follows.
<Shikoku region><Kinki region>

A1: Kagawa Prefecture

B6: North area, Wakayama Prefecture

A2: Chuyo area, Ehime Prefecture

B7: North area, Nara Prefecture

B1: Central area, Kochi Prefecture<Tokai region><Kyushu region>

B8: West area, Aichi Prefecture

B2: Central area, Fukuoka Prefecture

B9: East area, Aichi Prefecture

B3: Kitakyushu area, Fukuoka Prefecture
B4: Fukuoka area, Fukuoka Prefecture<Kanto Koshin region>

B5: North area, Nagasaki Prefecture

B10: Gunma Prefecture
B11: Saitama Prefecture5Experiences of Water Shortage in 1991-2010

No
B10

1 year2-3 years

B11

4-7 years
more than 8 years

B8
B9
B7
A1

B5

B3

B2

A2

B6

B1

B4

Figure 02: The numbers of yearly interruptions or restrictions of watersupply systems in 20 years (1991-2010)6

Though Japan receives abundant precipitation due to regular monsoons, water
shortages are frequent, due to the spatial and temporal variation of rainfall, marked
topographic differences, small river catchments and sudden drops in altitude causing
short and swift rivers. This situation is further aggravated by severe droughts. The
amount of available water resources per capita is 3,300 m3/year. Total annual water use
is approximately 85.2 billion m3, 88 percent of which is obtained from rivers. The
agriculture sector makes up more than 65 percent of annual water abstraction, followedby domestic and industrial uses (20 and 15 percent respectively).
Based on the 1961 Water Resources Development Promotion Law, comprehensive
water resources development (including infrastructure like water supply reservoirs) andefficient use of water resources have been advanced in order to ensure a stable supplyof water resources over a wide area to respond to the rapid development of industry andincrease in urban population. Water for flooded rice paddy fields and fish culturecomprises most of Japan’s agricultural water use. For the last two decades, agricultural
surface area has been decreasing. However, due to increasing requirements for higher
crop productivity and measures on water quality, the amount of water utilized for
irrigation has not changed significantly. Due to its limited amount of cultivatable surface
area, Japan imports many products, especially grains, crops and meat.
Following the enactment of the “River Law” in 1964, which is the Legal Framework forRiver and Water Management in Japan, use of agricultural water, which accounts for
two-thirds of all water intakes, has remained more or less stable despite the decreasingarea of paddy fields. Industrial water use has also remained unchanged thus far
because of the changes of industrial structure and the improvement in the recycling rate.
Domestic water use, in contrast, is still growing owing to changes in lifestyle.
Precipitation has been on the decrease in recent years, causing frequent droughts in
the Tokyo metropolitan area, the Chubu region and western Japan. The drought of 1994,
for example, had a far-reaching and serious impact, affecting almost the entire country.
So the water resources development today is planned on the basis of a design drought
having a return period of 10 years. By the standards of the international community, thisfactor of safety is low.
Water restriction was carried out due to the drought situation in 20 of 109 river systems
in Japan in 2005. The Figure 03 shows the river systems and rivers affected bydroughts in years 2005.

7

Figure 03: The river systems and rivers affected by droughts in 2005

3.5 Water Resource Management and Dams in Japan

Figure 04: Objectives of dam and Numbers of dam

8

The Figure 04 shows the functions and effects of dams in Japan. Accordingly somedams have been built with the view of flood control only, while some dams have been
constructed with the aim of flood control and water utilization, and some have been builtwith the view of water utilization only.

Figure 05: Effects of dams in drought condition

The Figure 05 shows the effects of dams in drought conditions. Accordingly the paddy
fields can be cultivated only in the Miya river catchment with the water supply by dam. In
Naka River catchment the paddy field were not able to cultivate at that time with having
no water supply dam.
Having faced to the drought condition in 2005 as shown in Figure 03 the Japanese
government took a decision to build the Sameura Dam in Yoshino River as solution tocontrol the future impacts.
 Sameura Dam
Yoshino river basin is a one of the biggest river basins in Japan including a catchment
area of 3,750 km2 and the length of the river is 194 km while 20% of the land area of
Shikoku Island included to the Yoshino River basin. There is a big difference of spread9

of rainfall over this area. Some parts take very high annual rainfalls while some otherparts having very less rainfall. Therefore, both the floods and droughts are experiencein this basin. In 1966, Yoshino River Development project was launched andcompleted in 1975. Under that, flood control measures and water supply schemes
were implemented. The major construction of this project was the Sameura Dam which
was built with four purposes that are as, flood control in Yoshino River, maintenance of
normal function of the river water, water supply to Shikoku four prefectures for irrigationand power generation. The Figure 06 shows the Sameura Dam.

Figure 06: Sameura dam

 Donto Dam
Donto dam in Miki City area has been constructed under the Toban-Yosui Irrigation
Project. By the water diversion schemes of Donto dam, it is expected to supply water
to improve the agricultural infrastructure in the field for rural development. Four cities
and one town in Hyogo prefecture are benefited from this project. Irrigation watersupplying to the paddy fields and tap water supplying to the urban areas are theobjectives of the project. Figure 07 shows the Donto dam.
Very ancient water diversion works under the Donto dam at Inami plateau arefunctioning. It diverts water through four sub channels effectively. Figure 08 shows thatdiversion work.
In the Donto dam project area there are ponds built to supply water to the paddy fields
in drought periods. These ponds have been constructed at Inami plateau. Figure 09

10

shows such a pond.

Figure 07: Donto dam

Figure 08: Diversion work

Figure 09: A pond

3.6 Response to Water Shortage on Agriculture
When shortages of agricultural water occur, farmers save water by means of"water-sharing (method of distributing water in accordance with designated times andturns)", intensification of repeated use and so on, though this requires a lot of labor andcost. For example, at the time of water shortage in 1994, the cost was about three times
as much as that in an average year. In addition, when the whole amount of water
becomes insufficient, crop growth is reduced or completely hindered.
The Figure 07 shows how the farmers tend to utilize water in a drought occasion. The
farmers act to save water as much as possible changing their usual water utilization
patterns. The strategies are 1) irrigation by rotation, 2) reuse of water, 3) supplementary
irrigation from underground water, dead water of pond, etc., 4) sacrificing of some fields
as described in the figure.

11

Figure 10: Strategies taken for irrigation during drought

3.7 Drought Conciliation Council for Water Use Coordination
By the river law provisions have been made for, when a severe drought happens, water
users concerned first try voluntarily to adjust their water uses in principle (Art 53-1). So
the consultation among stakeholders is the first measurement. In such case, riveradministrators shall make effort to provide necessary information for water use
adjustment among water users concerned (Art 53-1). In reality, “Drought Conciliation
Council”, composed of the river administrator, water users, local government, and otherconcerned agencies, has been established in a lot of river basins. This council has
contributed to water use conciliation during droughts as a forum for mutual consultation
among stakeholders. River administrators may make necessary intermediation or
arbitration in case no agreement is reached in the consultation among water users(including consultation in Drought Conciliation Council). Government’s intervention is
the second measurement.

12

Figure 11: Drought Conciliation Council

Table1: Drought water-use conciliation councils established (as of March 2002)

Types of River System

No. of Established River

No. of Established

Systems

Organizations

Class A

69

103

Class B

25

25

13

Case Study: Ichikawa River System and Drought Management
River Basin Area: 506km2 (Mountain: 82%, Agricultural Field: 11%, Urban Area: 7%)
Length of River: 78km (Level B River)
Utilization of Water: Irrigation (approximately 3,900ha field), Tap Water, Industrial use, andPower Generation
Dams in the river system (refer to the figure A):
Name of Dam(Year)
Kurokawa Dam(1974)

Managed by
Kansai ElectricPower Co. Inc.

Ikuno Dam(1972)

Hyogo Prefecture

Hase Dam &Ota Dam(1995)
Kotani Dam(2001)

Kansai ElectricPower Co. Inc.
Hyogo Prefecture

PurposeCapacity (Effective)

Industrial Use,
Irrigation, Tap Water,
and Power
Generation
Flood Control,Industrial Use,
Irrigation and Tap
Water
Power Generation

21.36 million m3

17.0 million m3

8.26 million m3 and8.66 million m3
16.1 million m3

Tap Water andIrrigation

Legal Framework for Water Resource Management:
Basic Policy of River Improvement of Ichikawa River System (March 2009)*The policy was formulated by the committee composed of academic experts,
engineers, representatives of people with water use rights and fishermen, andrepresentatives of residents in the river basin areas (15 members)-> River Infrastructure Development Plan (March 2010)

Record of Recent Water Shortage:
Year

1994
2000
2002
2007

Rate of Restriction (Maximum, %)Tap WaterIndustrial Use
Irrigation
30
15
20
10

90
50
50
35

14

50
50
50
25

Number of
restriction days
(days)
112
30
115
54

Water Rights for Ichikawa River:[Ichikawa River System]
Permitted Water Rights*: Tap Water 5, Industrial Use 6, Power Generation 7, Miscellaneous
1, and Irrigation 30
Customary Water Rights*: Irrigation 518 (Total 5,829.26 ha)

Note: Some are not in use[Ichikawa Mainstream]
Permitted Water Rights*: Tap Water 5, Industrial Use 3, Power Generation 3, Miscellaneous
1, and Irrigation 16 (Total 1,844.3 ha)
Customary Water Rights*: Irrigation 23 (Total 1,488.6 ha)

Intake Points of Water●Tap Water●Industrial Use, Power Generation●Irrigation

15

Note: In Japan, water right is defined, as “Right to use river water” under the River Law orother legislature does not provide the explicit definition of water right. The effects of waterright are: 1) Water right holders can use a definite amount of water exclusively in line with the
purpose of use approved by river administrator, and 2) Water right holders protected fromother water use which prejudice their water rights.
Basically, in order to acquire the water right, we have to obtain the permission from riveradministrator. This is called “permitted water right”. However, as mentioned after, it is notnecessary to obtain the permission with regard to customary water right. The contents ofwater rights are decided on the basis of: 1) As to permitted water right, the conditions added
by river administrator with the water permission, and 2) As to customary water right, thecustoms approved by societies.

Kotani Dam for Effective Water Resource Utilization:
In case of High Quantity of Water Flow -> Pumping from the River and Storage
Low Quantity of Water Flow -> Use Dam Water for Additional Water Supply

Design of water
pumping andtransmission

Kurokawa Dam

Ichikawa river
Pumping

Funatsu Water
Purification CenterTrans‐
mitting

Water
Pumping &Transmission

Kotani Dam

After completion of the construction of the Kotani Dam, no serious water shortage has been
occurred in the area.

16

Ota Dam

Hase Dam

Kurokawa Dam

Ikuno Dam

Kotani Dam

Ichikawa River
Figure A: Dams for Ichikawa River System

17

Regional Network for Effective Water Resource Utilization:

Kurokawa Dam
Ichikawa River

Kotani Dam
Donto Dam

River
Water pipe
Connection pipeCommon Facilities

18

CHAPTER 04 – DROUGHTS IN SRI LANKA
4.1 Introduction
Low rainfall during monsoons is the cause for droughts in south-eastern, north-central
and north-western areas of Sri Lanka sometimes experiencing consecutive droughts
making lasting impacts on livelihoods. Droughts of serious nature occur once in about
3-4 years and severe droughts ofnational significance once in about
10

years

also

impactinghydro-power generation - the main
source of energy in Sri Lanka
affectingtheeconomy.

Major

droughts have experienced during
the

years

1953-56,
1993-94,

1935-37,

1947-49,

1974-77,

1981-83,

2000-01and

2003-04(DMC 2005). The Figure 12 shows
the drought affected areas in Sri
Lanka.

According

to

that

the

Kurunegala District being the firstmostaffected

Anuradapura,Puttlam,district,
Badulla,Monaragala and Hambantota had
been the second highest level indrought occurrence. The Figure 13
shows the general trend line ofdrought occurrences from 1974 to

Figure 12: Drought affected areas in Sri Lanka

2007. According to that the biggest drought has been occurred in 2001.

19

Figure 13: Drought occurrence in Sri Lanka from 1974 to 2006

4.2 Impacts on Paddy and Other Crops by Droughts
According to the data from 1974 - 2007 the highest damage caused to paddy and othercrops were by occurrence of droughts. A land area of 530,685 hectares of paddy andother crops had been destroyed by droughts. Also for the period 1974-2007, the largest
proportion of emergency assistance has been spent on droughts, followed by floods,
cyclones, the tsunami, epidemics, coastal erosion and landslides. Emergency supplies
worth Rs. 1,110,434,179 have been spent on droughts, Rs. 636,614,913 on floods, Rs.
223,520,392 on cyclones, Rs. 31,180,200 on the tsunami, Rs. 24,647,000 on epidemics,
Rs. 18,620,429 on coastal erosion and finally Rs. 15,350,969 on landslides.
4.3 Drought Mitigation Measures in Sri Lanka
Droughts had been occurring for a long time in Sri Lankan history. The major project tomitigate such droughts had been implemented under the King’s ruling period that is the“Village Tank Cascade System”. A ‘cascade’ is defined as ‘a connected series of village
irrigation tanks organized within a micro-(or meso-) catchment of the dry zone
landscape, storing, conveying and utilizing water from an ephemeral rivulet’ (Madduma
Bandara 1985). The village tank cascade systems were the need for a sustainableirrigation and water management technology to meet the challenge of recurrent water
shortages and drought conditions in a seasonally dry environment. Therefore, it was theneed for more economical and rational use of water that leads to the development of therecycling or re-uses principle. The Figure 10 shows the distribution of tanks in drought

20affected areas in the country.
Some of these small tanks have alreadybeen filled with sediments and not properly
functioning. The government of Sri Lanka
has taken steps to remove the sediments
and make them again function properly.
The Figure 14 shows one of such project
implemented by the Disaster Management
Centre in Galagamuwa Divisional secretarydivision, Kurunegala District. By this project,
four

small

tanks,

which

have

poor

catchments, water is diverted from a tankwhich has a rich catchment. Likewise,
many projects are presently operating in Sri
Lanka diverting water to tanks which havepoor natural intakes.

Besides

to

the

small

tank

cascadeFigure 14: Distribution of tanks

development projects, the government of
Sri Lanka has been built many big reservoirs
and dams to supply water to drought
affectedareas.

The

Kalawewa(Anuradapura District), the Rajanganaya
wewa (Anuradapura District), Minneriya
wewa (Polonnaruwa District), Parakrama
Samudraya(Polonnaruwa

District),aresome examples for such major reservoirs
and dams built to mitigate the droughts.
Above mentioned irrigation systems as wellas dug wells, deep wells, tube wells and drip
irrigation systems have been promoted tomitigate the droughts in Sri Lanka. New cropvarieties which are adopted to droughts
have also been introduced as drought
mitigation measures.

Figure 15: Drought Mitigation Project21

CHAPTER 05 - CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
5.1 Conclusions
1. Dam constructions to distribute water to drought affected areas can be identified
as the major drought mitigation practice in Japan.
2. These dams have been constructed through the main rivers and with hightechnology.
3. Most of the drought affected areas in the country have been able to provide
irrigation water by these dams.
4. Because of the very steep slopes from mountains to the sea within a shortdistance the Japan has constructed many of dams for both to control the floods
as well as to mitigate the droughts.
5. The “River Act”, some other relevant acts and regulations provide the legal baseto function the dams and irrigation systems in proper.
6. Central Government, Prefectural Governments and Municipalities have a
specified role in their contexts on dams and irrigations and they do it.
7. The community has organized to respond to droughts.
8. When shortages of agricultural water occur, farmers save water by means of"water-sharing (method of distributing water in accordance with designatedtimes and turns)", intensification of repeated use.
9. “Drought Conciliation Council” has contributed to water use conciliation during
droughts as a forum for mutual consultation among stakeholders.

5.2 Recommendations
1. A lot of practices of drought mitigation in Japan have already been applied in Sri
Lanka
2. Several major dams have been constructed to irrigate the drought affected areasin Sri Lanka and they are quite success for long. But lot of excess water frommany rivers flows to the sea and the possibilities of them should be studied tofeed dam reservoirs to irrigate the drought affected areas so far. Appling theJapanese technology in this regard will be more important.
3. In Sri Lanka there are no such short distance steep slopes as mentioned above,instead, there are lot of plane areas and the lot of small and medium scale tanks.

22

This cascade system should be developed with the technical support of theJapan.

References:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

http://www.mlit.go.jp/tochimizushigen/mizsei/water_resources/contents/issues.html
http://www.unesco.org/water/wwap/wwdr/wwdr2/case_studies/pdf/japan.pdf
http://www.idi.or.jp/library/pdf/RIVERE.PDF
http://www.narbo.jp/narbo/event/materials/twwa03/tw03_09_01-1.pdf
http://www.mlit.go.jp/tochimizushigen/mizsei/water_resources/contents/current_state.html6. http://www.mlit.go.jp/river/trash_box/paper/pdf_english/36.pdf
7. http://damnet.or.jp/cgi-bin/binranA/Syuukei.cgi?sy=moku1kei
8. http://www.preventionweb.net/english/professional/news/v.php?id=12542
9. http://management.kochi-tech.ac.jp/PDF/IWPM/IWPM_Jayawardane.pdf
10. http://drh.bosai.go.jp/Project/Phase2/1Documents/8_Proceeding/8_TIK6_P.pdf
11. http://www.dmc.gov.lk/A1_TechAndMitigation.htm
12. http://www.adrc.asia/nationinformation.php?NationCode=144&Lang=en&NationN
um=08
13. Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism “Water Resource in Japan in
FY2011” (August 2011)
14. Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism “Rivers in Japan”(September 2006)
15. Brochures of Himeji Public Works Office, Hyogo Prefectural Government

23